At the end of December, Vox gave the surprise and voted against the modification of the urban regulations in the Madrid City Council promoted by the Government team of PP and Ciudadanos, a few months before the municipal elections on May 28. The far-right formation had previously supported the advancement of these regulations, which has served the development sector to prepare new projects and which are now in limbo. Tomorrow, the municipal plenary will foreseeably knock down the proposal due to the rejection of the left, the Mixed Group and Vox. carolina rock (Zaragoza, 1973), president of Asprima, the Madrid employers’ association for developers, has not given up after four years of working with proposals from the business association for these urban changes.
Why do you support the change in urban regulations?
Since the General Plan of 1997, there have been continuous attempts to modify the plan and adapt it to the urban regulations of the city. In a legislature it is very complex to undertake a modification. This government, when it entered, was very clever. He made an approach seeking efficiency, since very important things in the plan could be changed by touching only the urban regulations.
These reforms, what do they contribute to the development sector?
Technically, there are many very important issues for the developer sector, for example, the computation of the buildable area. It is favorably modified in terrace areas and below ground surfaces. Fundamentally, it affects the common areas for residences for the elderly, students and the senior living [edificios con servicios adaptados a mayores]. The change clearly allows its viability. In addition, it provides a solution to vacant endowment land in order to be able to use social integration housing. Although that falls outside the strict scope of the promoter.
He has had the rejection of Vox, despite the fact that he had previously voted in favor.
On the left I understand, although I do not share, that his position is more interventionist. What urban planning needs is flexibility and a tendency towards possibility. Vox, in his opinion and his idea of urbanism is very similar to the one we propose from Asprima. It is a possible approach, to increase supply and economic activity. I think that here, clearly, what happens is the political moment in which this approval occurs. From Asprima, what we ask is that you put aside the political moment to make the decision on urban regulations and leave urban planning outside of politics.
Has Vox explained to the employers why it rejects it now?
The truth is that we have not been able to sit down with them, despite the fact that our intention is to explain all these technical benefits.
Do you think Vox can change its mind in one day?
Well I do not know. I am not an expert political scientist, I simply trust that we have tried. We have sent them documents and we have tried to send them all these benefits. We have been working on improvements for four years.
The developer businessman and, in general, the real estate agent has been close to Vox since this party emerged. Have you been disappointed?
Is the businessman very proVox? I dont know. The businessman, after all, what he tries is to create a legal-economic ecosystem that makes the activity viable. More than akin to Vox, what the businessman does is react when he sees that very political measures are taken politically and little thought about the economic consequences that it may have. In that sense, it is true that Vox’s economic approaches square a lot with a possible management of the economy. In the end, it is a disappointment for politics, more than for the political party, to see how when an electoral moment approaches, even the most liberal economic convictions are curtailed. The disappointment is not Vox, but the whole game of politics.
What does it mean for the sector that these standards are not approved?
It is not the absolute debacle. But it is a delay. It supposes an investment delay that is important.
The logical thing is that companies wait to see if there are changes in the next legislature to request building permits.
There is no advantage to ordering the licenses now. They are all inconvenient. Of course, there is a brake on projects.
How do you see the development sector?
As the sector underwent a true transformation with the 2008 crisis, the reality is that we have been underproducing housing for 14 years, with production well below what is necessary and leveraging ourselves as little as possible. In the end, we have found a very serious imbalance in the market, in which there is a significant shortage of supply and a significant bag of unattended demand. For this reason, we do not foresee a debacle for companies despite the macro situation. What the sector must do is the other way around, not retract the sails, but rather try to increase production to match the need for housing.
And what are their demands?
The demands of the sector are fundamentally focused on urban planning, on the need to reduce the cost of land in the entire equation of housing costs, and this can only be done with a courageous decision by the legislator by changing regulations. The second would be to continue working on shortening deadlines for urban planning license procedures. We also have a serious labor shortage.
How many new construction homes do you estimate for 2023 in Spain?
2022 closes, once again, barely touching 100,000 units. We start from the basis that this figure is well below what society would require. By 2023, the forecast is that we will once again have close to 100,000 homes. This is not good news for the sector because our ambition should be closer to 250,000, which would be logical. Because in addition, the problem is that new construction housing at an affordable price has ceased to be produced and that is what causes so much price tension in second-hand housing.
How is the rise in interest rates affecting access to housing?
For the traditional promoter it shouldn’t affect that the guys go up to a healthy and healthy situation. What was not normal was the above. It certainly increases the cost of housing. Hence the importance of recovering the production of affordable housing.